


To Fight Monsters

by suyari



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Jaeger Pilots, Jaegers, Sentient Jaegers, The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 12:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suyari/pseuds/suyari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if it wasn't Raleigh who went out of phase first?</p>
<p>What if it was Gipsy? She was on again, aware and conscious, piloted. There was Raleigh. But where was Yancy? And who is THIS?!</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Fight Monsters

No one ever gave a thought to what it was like to be a Jaeger. As if tons of articulated joints, fluid synapse systems, and artificial intelligence that merged on a regular basis with sentient, emotional minds, full of rich, vivid imagery could never find the spark within itself. It was insulting, and inaccurate, but no one was aware of that outside of Jaeger pilots themselves. And when they brought it up, people brushed it off, thinking them superstitious. Too close to things, too biased, when in reality, no one could know more just how easy it was to recognize a third, burgeoning consciousness every time their minds melded together. When Jaeger pilots spoke to one another, they acknowledged this reality for what it was. Spoke amongst themselves accepting it as truth. Outsiders found it endearing, they found it concerning, but they let them speak, because it would only harm everyone to argue and needlessly upset and distract the Rangers whose job it was to keep humanity standing.

Not that they were any better at seeing what effect drifting had on the pilots. They gave clinical terms to what they perceived to be cluttered side effects. They brushed off the changes being made in individuals on a sub atomic level. Outright refused to believe any more could be changing about the world they so desperately clung to. So dead set on keeping things the way they were, on defending the old way of life, pre-Kaiju. As if it had been any better. At least, post-Kaiju, post-Jaeger, the world was so busy fighting the outside threat, they had no time to fight each other.

Jaegers had been created to fight, had been born out of a desperate need for warriors who could defend the planet against the alien incursion. One would assume, at first glance that a Jaeger might then be a harsh, cold, unfeeling place. One would be wrong.

Jaegers might not know what it was like to be alive alone, but if anyone had ever bothered to ask, they'd know they never wanted to be. Their pilots were the most integral aspect of who Jaegers were. They taught their Jaegers through their actions and experiences, through their feelings and responses. No one ever looked too closely at the reason so many Jaegers had to be scrapped once their pilots died. No one ever bothered to look into the reason a still functional system simply did not work. They couldn't fathom that Jaegers might in any way have autonomy. That they might _choose_ to follow their pilots into inactive duty. No Jaeger wanted to be booted online only to find themselves bereft. And they _remembered_.

Without their pilots, they were incapable of communicating their desires. No one else would look that deeply into them, no one else would find that place that was all three. No one else could _feel_ them at a level that would do any good.

When Yancy died, Gipsy and Raleigh held tightly to one another. In shock, they made their way back to shore. Hopeful in some small part of them where Yancy still lived. Devastated, in all the rest, where he was missing, The scars where he'd been torn free of them gaping, raw and ugly.

They'd made the trip, and had only a moment to realize they'd made it, before both felt the pang of Yancy's loss so strongly, they gave up right then and there. The world went dark and empty and cold. The pain too much to bear.

Gipsy was unresponsive for years as techs tried and failed to bring her back to full functionality. The first time they put new pilots in her, she'd been so repulsed the neural handshake had left both hemispheres screaming. Their cries echoed in Gipsy, bringing back Yancy and Raleigh's screams. By the time LOCCENT shut her down and pried the pilots out, they were convulsing. When they woke, they refused to go back in. Citing the 'superstitious nonsense' that Gipsy would never accept another piloting team without Raleigh present to smooth the transition.

After the first pair walked away - having visited Gipsy first to apologize, their words soft and sad, their caresses mournful, yet understanding - word spread quickly. No pilots dared climb into Gipsy as a new team. When they'd run short on surviving pilots who respected her and her kind too much to put her through such a traumatic experience again, they'd turned to the last graduating class, and the untried Rangers that had come from it.

Inexperienced with Jaegers, and too stubborn and glory gone to care that they were doing anything wrong, they agreed. Gipsy left each pair more and more haunted, as she became more affronted. Angry and mournful and unwilling, she pushed back harder and harder. Reliving the last moments with her Beckets in defiance. Pair after pair came out screaming, shaking, unable to remember how to do anything as simple as independent motor functions. And those had been the ones strong enough to force her into a handshake.

In time, Mako Mori stopped coaxing her and began to promise they would find Raleigh. Gipsy fell into a deep, depressive darkness. Around her, the Shatterdome changed. Crimson could offer no comfort, having born witness to Gipsy's personal hell. Cherno arrived and sided with her. Striker came and was horrified. They waited. The others trying to help in the only way they knew how. Until all the Jaeger pilots would not stop pointing out that they needed Raleigh. Gipsy needed Raleigh. The Marshall relented eventually, worn by strain and guilt.

Gipsy came awake for yet another trial. She had been through so much, she had lost all hope. Instantly hostile, angry and volatile. Prepared to hurt whomever they had forced to climb inside her for the last time. If she killed them - something she had never wanted, for she was a _Jaeger_ and she loved humanity, as all Jaegers did - they would stop. If a Ranger died because of her, they would finally stop all the painful attempts to get her moving again. Disrespecting the code, and her own feelings. To Jaegers, falling was a serious decision. One they made only when their pilots could be with them no more. Hundreds of them had died honorably in the field, with their pilots, or protecting them. Attempting to force any Jaeger who had willingly given up the fight in honor of their pilots was a sacrilege beyond any humanity could ever hope to understand.

She had done her best. Any Jaeger would say she'd endured more than her fair share of suffering. Jaegers protected humans, they didn't hurt them, but if she wanted it to stop, she would have to. Things had come to a head, and as much as she knew she would never be able to live with herself if she went through with it, she also knew if she did, she'd never have to live again.

Resolved, she braced herself, waiting out the neural handshake. She couldn't hurt them without it. She would have to be patient, would have to bear the grate of new minds for long enough to merge so she could make her point, and earn her reward. But when the haze cleared and the minds were opened, they were gentle. Her right hemisphere reached out, and Gipsy _knew_ that mind and rushed to greet it. She was so busy lost in the joy of reuniting with him that it took her a moment to even look at the other mind.

What inevitably jarred her out of it was the fact that Raleigh was suddenly her right hemisphere. It confused her, because that was Yancy. It had always been Yancy. Yancy was right and Raleigh was left. Yet now, Raleigh was right and Yancy was nowhere, and who was this? Her confusion tripped up Raleigh, who was suddenly both sides, both Beckets, and back again. She fell into the memory with him, begging to know where Yancy had gone. Unable to fathom what had happened to him after he'd been ripped free of them.

A new memory rose, deep and winding. Raleigh and Gipsy followed it. So _this_ was Mako. Gipsy watched and felt and learned. She took measure of Mako and accepted her, and in so doing, became so connected to her that not even LOCCENT could break the neural connection the three of them shared. Yancy was dead, Raleigh had returned, and Mako was perfect. Gipsy barely got to enjoy the moment before she was violently shut down. She cried out for them as the connection died, leaving Mako trembling and Raleigh shaken.

When next she awoke, they were a team. Gipsy knew from the moment they dispatched that this would be the end. But they would make _such_ an end. Gipsy Danger and her pilots. All three of them.


End file.
